I am about to begin DMing Legacy of Fire, and one of my PC's wish to be Kasatha.
Having not read ahead very far, I was curious on what people think of this.
Will this present problems?
Should people act very prejudice?
Is this just a completely horrible idea?
It should work out just fine. People in the city and territory of Katapesh aren't prejudice in the same way as other nations. They only care whether you have money or not, so they shouldn't discriminate against him just because of his species. Of course he will be the only one of his kind so it will be near impossible for him to be inconspicuous.
Of course the slavers might come after him because a four armed slave would probably fetch a pretty good price. Now that I think about it using the Earning your Freedom trait as his background would make complete sense.
I mean there are already extra-terrestrials living in Katapesh, so what is one more?
I have literally 0 knowledge about Legacy of fire, but for what reason does he want to play a kasatha? Mostly when I see this topic come up, it's because of wanting to get 4 arms for powergaming and not for roleplaying reasons.
Will this present problems?
Not necessarily, but without knowing the AP I can't comment.
Should people act very prejudice?
Well, yes and no. People can't be really prejudiced against kasatha like they are against, let's say as an example orcs, because probably 99% of golarion's population has no idea what a kasatha is. That being said, people would probably react in fear or curiosity, when seeing such a strange creature.
Is this just a completely horrible idea?
In my opinion: Yes, because players rarely have the insight on the background of the kasatha to make for believable roleplay and only pick it for some stupid fast reloading Gunslinger gimmick build. I also won't mention any background here, as it might spoil some Iron Gods plots.
I like Legacy of Fire. I haven't run it, but I've read it and would like to one day. I agree with Jeremy757 that prejudice shouldn't be a problem, at least in Katapesh proper. There's latitude to reinterpret that in the hinterlands of any metropolis.
From my perspective, the real logistical problem is armor. If you have four arms, you need custom armor. That's going to cost. The PC will need to pay significantly more to have their armor modified. I don't have a CRB at work, but without guidance I'd rule that this could be as much as adding 50% onto the armor's base price.
Magical armor is also going to be difficult. Absent some previous kasatha living in Katapesh for reasons you've invented to give the player magical armor, there's no reason it would be there.
What does a kasatha do with the magic armor she can find? Can she retrofit magic armor made for a two-armed person to be for a four-armed person? I suppose you could rule that way, but I wouldn't. At the very least, I'd require the smith/wizard/smith and wizard combo modifying it to pass a new Craft Magic Arms and Armor check because the armor has been fundamentally changed.
To give a sense of perspective here, I'm perfectly happy letting magic weapons and armor resize themselves from medium to small for PCs. I feel the same way about other magic items too. But, something about this makes me want to draw a line. I could see reasons to do this (especially if it was a player who created a great backstory and was all about RP), but I'd want to limit this for the reasons Gratz brings up above.
1) Having multiple arms is a little broken. This is coming from a guy who played a homebrew race with multiple arms.
2) I strongly believe the primary reason to play a race should come from a flavor standpoint. I have never seen anyone play a kasatha for flavor and story. They do it because they want to abuse the multiple arms.
3) I consider kasatha a poorly designed race. Even the arms aside, they have really good stats. They have almost no depth. They're humanoids despite being very monstrous. And they're obviously a knock-off of the Thri-Kreen race from Dark Sun.
4) I haven't played Legacy of Fire very far. However, the main quest-giver and other friendly NPCs would have no reason to trust a kasatha. Their enemies are Lamastuu worshippers. At best, they'd think twice about hiring him. At worst, they'd think he's a spy.